Somebody crashed into the door between the hallway and the teachers’ room. Sayuri jerked up from her desk. Until that moment, only she and one other teacher had been in the whole building. That was supposed to be the boon of getting work done during summer vacation – no distractions!

“Sensei!” A boy in shorts and a red Anpanman T-shirt slid the door open. “Kawashima-sensei!”

His companion, another boy with gangly legs sprouting from his shorts and a black shirt that made him sweat like a sports star, smacked him on the arm and angrily bade him to have more manners in the presence of their teachers.

But Shota Shimazaki was not known for his polite manners. He had been an excitable boy since his first day of first year, and now that he was a third year student with nothing to hide, he often bothered his home room teacher no matter what time of year. How did he know I was here today? Sayuri had come on a lark. After spending a whole day at home, cooped up in her air conditioned apartment of sour memories, she decided to spare herself the heartache and get some work done. The school may not be air conditioned, but an oscillating fan kept Sayuri’s skin dry and her brain focused on her autumn lesson plans.

Until Shota barged in, anyway.

“Shota-kun?” Sayuri turned her folder over and placed her pen on the edge of her desk. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be out playing?” The only explanation was that Shota’s mother, the nosy Mariko Shimazaki who lived two blocks away from Sayuri, had seen her walking toward the school with her work bag slung over her shoulder.

“Shitsureishimasuuuuu!” Shota waited until he was by his teacher’s side to finally excuse his sudden arrival. His friend stood behind him and briefly nodded to both Sayuri and the other teacher sitting on the other end of the large room. “You’ll be proud of me, Kawashima-sensei. I’ve been doing my homework every day.”

“He’s lying,” the other boy, whose name continued to escape Sayuri since he was not one of her students, said. “He was up the whole night doing the math.”

Shota blushed and tsked, habits he probably picked up from his grandfather. That man always sat on the corner of Sayuri’s street, playing go with the other elders of the neighborhood. The man wasn’t a nuisance, per se, but he was as loud and boisterous as his grandson.

“Sensei knows that math is not my strong-suit. I’m an eigo boi.”

Sayuri sighed. It was rare for children to barge in like this during vacations, but as long as the gates were open and staff wandered the halls, children were free to come and go. Part of the “open door” policy fostered between teachers and students. But when a teacher grew accustomed to some peace and quiet during the August season, it was a bit much to deal with the likes of Shota. I know your mother, kid. A little too well. More than once Mariko helped with Yuma when he was a tiny baby. Sayuri was inclined to listen to her advice since the woman had raised two boys of her own. Her advice about how to avoid the “garden hose” was invaluable.

Now when their paths crossed… Mariko politely said hello and gave Sayuri that look of I’m so glad I’m not you right now.

Sayuri gritted her teeth while reminding herself that Shota had nothing to do with her problems. “Okay, eigo boi, let’s see those workbooks I’m sure you brought me.”

“Youshi.” Shota slammed his bookbag on the floor and unearthed a small stack of thin workbooks. Math, earth science, English, kanji, and composition spilled out like Niagara Falls. Shota dug through them until he found his English workbook. His friend was left to clean up the rest of the mess. “Hai, onegaishi-ma-suuuu, sensei!”

Boys were so damn rowdy. She snatched the English workbook and opened her top drawer, where she kept a small pocket dictionary and the national study guide for third year English.

“Have you been practicing your English at home, Shota-kun?” She clicked her red pen and started checking his answers. It was a nuisance, but at least it would be one less thing to check at the end of vacation. “Remember, I know your mother. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

“Eburii dei, sensei!” His vocabulary was correct, but his accent left much to be desired. “I’ve been doing the summer program at the English school. Itzu fun!”

To be fair, Shota’s English marks were one of the highest in his class. But he also had a habit of stretching the truth when it suited him. Such was life with nine-year-old boys.

“Good. Let’s see your daily journaling.”

Sayuri had assigned each of her students a daily journal to complete during summer vacation. The same shit she had to do when she a kid, and she knew how it usually worked: the kids waited until the last week of vacation to sit down and write their daily journals, making up whatever pleased them or whatever sounded the easiest to write. The point wasn’t to be truthful, anyway. The point was to show that they could construct sentences in Japanese using the kana they had learned over the past few months.

At the end of summer, Sayuri would have a whole stack of books to go through, and each one of them would say things like, “Today I went to the zoo. It was fun. I saw elephants and polar bears.” For every child who could knock out their daily journal in one minute, there was another who took an hour to spit out one sentence. Oh, well, as long as they got them done…

When the boys left at the end of the hour, Sayuri exhaled a sigh of relief and endured the chuckling of her coworker, Tanaka-sensei. The homeroom teacher of 5-C had nothing on Kawashima-sensei and her 3-A class.

“At least you have students who care enough to see you in the summer!” he called from across the room. “All of my fifth year students have forgotten my name already!”

Sayuri cleaned up her desk and grabbed her sweater. “He’s very genki, ne?”

“I’d kill to be that energetic again. Alas.”

Sayuri had never been an energetic person. Even when she was Shota’s age, she was a shy girl who preferred working in the school garden to playing dodgeball or soccer. “Me too, perhaps.” She picked up her bag and bade farewell to her lone coworker. Shota’s interruption had killed her momentum. Besides, she had an important errand to run.

I must get a thank you gift for Ban-san. Miwa had been at the forefront of Sayuri’s mind ever since she came home two days ago. That woman would probably be fine with never hearing from Sayuri again, but someone had been brought up with proper manners that dictated she was to find an adequate gift to express her gratitude.

She just didn’t know what.

What was she supposed to get the woman who had saved her life? Who had helped her out of the hospital when no one else would? Traditional Japanese sweets wouldn’t cut it. Flowers were cheap, even when they weren’t. Sayuri knew nothing about Miwa’s likes or dislikes. Nothing about her aside from the fact she worked for a train company and liked locomotives, based on the few things around her apartment. There had been a lot of gaming items, too, but Sayuri knew little about video games.

Gift certificates were impersonal. Jewelry was too presumptive. Perhaps the sweets and a trip for two to an onsen? Did other people like that sort of stuff?

Sayuri wandered down the shopping park between the school and her apartment building. Aunties and entrepreneurial thirty-somethings sold the usual wares: shoes, clothes, stationery, dishes, and toys. None of it was personal. Not even the handmade items lining shelves and hanging from racks on the edge of the street.

I used to bring Yuma to this toy shop to find something new to play with. Emiko used to take him to the sweet shop to spoil him with cavities. I wanted to have another child. I wanted a little boy and a little girl to bring through this park for the rest of my life.

Sayuri snapped out of her thoughts and encountered the perfect gift for Miwa right in front of her. Too bad she had yet to realize that she much preferred thinking about Miwa than any of the people she had lost in the past year.

It was a start, though.